Maintenance of data stored at a storage subsystem, which includes a primary bulk storage medium, is essential to the operation of a computer system. Accordingly, storage subsystems are constructed to minimize, to the extent practicable, the likelihood that the storage subsystem will fail or otherwise prevent normal access to the stored data. Despite these efforts, however, failure of storage subsystems sometimes occurs.
Therefore, the master copy of data stored at a storage subsystem is sometimes stored on another storage device. However, even if master copies of the data are kept, the process of reconstructing the data using the master copy, e.g., retrieving and restoring the data to a storage subsystem, can be quite laborious.
Even the storage subsystem and other storage device are connected together in a network, i.e., a WAN, a LAN, a cluster, the Internet or any other type of network, if the storage subsystem fails, reloading the storage subsystem with master-copy data stored on the other storage device typically requires requests for the master-copy data to be manually-generated. This exercise can take a particularly lengthy time period.
The user's involvement in reloading data can be reduced by "pre-loading" the replacement storage subsystem at the repair facility with a master copy of the failed system files. This, at least from the user's standpoint, permits a substantial reduction in the time required for reloading operations when compared with manual user-generated requests.
In order to reload or pre-load the master-copy data, the identity of the data stored on the failed storage subsystem must be known. This requires the user to remember or keep an updated, separate inventory of the data stored on the storage subsystem. Typically, even those users who try to maintain a separate updated inventory of the data stored will occasionally fail to properly update the inventory.
Further, even if a separate, updated inventory is properly maintained, or master-copies of the data exist, manually generated requests to download the master-copies of the data will be required to reload or pre-load the data.